Rupert Murdoch’s media did not create the economic and political conditions from which arose Thatcherism. But neither does Tony Blair’s enthusiastic neo-liberalism nor Gordon Brown’s autonomous rejection of the euro mean that right-wing populist media do not affect popular culture. Such media may reflect populist instincts rather than create them, but consider what such reflection may involve: the legitimisation and normalisation of such instincts; their strengthening, as “the man in the street” feels that his prejudices are part of the…